Champaign County Young Democrats to host Illinois 13th Congressional District candidates

Democrats running running against Republican incumbent Rep. Rodney Davis will be at the Champaign County Young Democrats’ candidates forum on foreign policy and immigration on Monday at 7 p.m. at the Champaign Public Library.

“The goals of the forum is to educate the public on the choices for the democratic nomination for the Illinois 13th District,” said Kyle Patterson, president of Champaign County Young Democrats. “We specifically chose to have a theme of foreign policy and immigration because we have felt that in previous forums throughout the district most of the questions related to domestic policy.”

Participating candidates include Jon Ebel, associate professor in the Department of Religion at the University, Betsy Londrigan, a candidate from Springfield, Erik Jones, Edwardsville attorney and David Gill, an emergency medicine physician from Bloomington, Illinois.

“In politics, we tend to focus on domestic policy because those are the issues that most commonly and most regularly affect our day-to-day lives,” Patterson said. “But when we think about the really landmark moments in history, a lot of times it is war or other issues with foreign policy.”

The forum will be moderated by Elizabeth Hess, co-host of “The DWS Morning Show” and columnist at The News-Gazette.

“I hope that it is educational and I hope that people find ways to differentiate between the candidates to choose which one they think is most equipped to take on a wide array of issues that our nation faces,” Patterson said.